My parents were huge fans of westerns, European cinema, and horror in particular. They wouldn't just show me kids' films.
It's part of my ritual to watch a new film every day, no matter what. It's important to me.
After 100 years, films should be getting really complicated. The novel has been reborn about 400 times, but it's like cinema is stuck in the birth canal.
I've always loved musical films; I find them really thrilling and exciting; it was part of what made me want to be an actress, that feeling of being really transported.
All you have to do is to look like crap on film and everyone thinks you're a brilliant actress. Actually, all you've done is look like crap.
I have done film, television and theatre - all at a pretty substantial level - I don't think it's possible for American actors to do that.
There is a sense of emptiness when you finish any film because you're empty and you can't give anything more to it anymore.
As a matter of principle, I always come to a film like a blank slate, I don't learn my lines in advance. With this approach, I feel clean.
In films, the fact that you can always do a scene again takes a load off your mind, enabling you to strive for perfection, which I always wanted.
On 'Platoon' I was offered in 1984 a very tiny part that Ivan Kane would go on to play. Then the financing fell out, and the film was scuttled for two years.
I'm more likely to lose my temper on a film set than almost anywhere. Often the level of idiocy is so exalted that it's impossible to comprehend.
People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.
I think everybody's had that feeling of sitting in a theater, in a dark room, with other strangers, watching a very powerful film, and they felt that feeling of transformation.
The Australian film industry has recognised Tropfest as a place to nurture young talent. It's a stepping stone between amateur and professional.
Cocteau is someone who has made such a profound impression on me that there's no doubt he's influenced every one of my films.
And the fact that I see so many films really seems to amaze certain people.
The only reason I ever do an independent film is that I believe in it, and I think it has something special to offer. I'm certainly not doing it to be a millionaire.
When I'm shooting, really the audience I'm thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.
Sometimes you learn more from films that aren't terribly successful and, indeed, sometimes you learn more from real disasters than you do from the ones that succeed.
You finish a project and start looking for something that might interest you. A lot of the films I've made are a reaction to something I've done right before.
I even agree with the new digital ways of filmmaking, where you don't even have physical film in the camera, but to be honest, I wouldn't want to use it.
